EN Two weeks ago, Growfunding, the Brussels online platform
for crowd-funding launched an appeal to finance a pop-up park
in the canal zone near the Ninoofsepoort/Porte de Ninove. The
appeal was initiated by associations CanalPARK,
JNM
Brussel,
Soft Revolution,
and Stand Up
Activism. They
think that too much politics is delaying the building of a park in
this densely populated area, which desperately needs more green
space. The appeal did not go unnoticed: they have already raised
just over half the total of 5,000 euro they need to build the park.
You can make a donation starting as low as 10 euro until 28
February. On 14 and 15 February, Growfunding is also organising
a debate (Friday) and a market (Saturday) at the Beursschouwburg.
Info: www.growfunding.be (GH)

EN ❙ The American dream is a cloud fueled by optimism. The cloud might be toxic.
It can also be terrific as it drifts from coast to coast, like the cigarette you crave
and will ultimately leave you wanting for more. The Duane Hanson retrospective at the Museum van Elsene/Musée d’Ixelles grounds the haze, revealing the
dreamers, while leaving the shape of the dream to your imagination. harlan levey

D

uane Hanson (1925-1996)
was born just before the Great
Depression and first received
notoriety in the 1960s, initially
praised not for formal or technical achievement, but for the brutal and
at times grotesque reality he reproduced
to scale. Gangland murders, dead soldiers, addiction, riots, and tense race relations were some of the themes that led to
his international acclaim.
In 1972, he was invited to documenta, after which he fell momentarily into
obscurity, which, along with age and illness, might explain the shift to subtlety
in his later work. Hanson is one of many
exceptional postwar American artists who
forced a national rewriting of what art
means, how it’s produced, and for whom.
He belongs to a generation of sculptors
who broke ranks with tradition. While
Dan Flavin played with light and Walter
De Maria worked with the land, Hanson
remained faithful to realism and the
depiction of daily life. In this period, real-

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ism had a place in emerging photographic practice as Robert Frank’s Americans
answered to Ansel Adams’s Landscapes,
and Nan Goldin, Mary Ellen Mark, and
others opened doors for the likes of Larry
Clark, Zoe Strauss, or Harmony Korine.
Post Norman Rockwell and Edward
Hopper however, it wasn’t as popular
an approach for painting or plastic arts,
which is probably why Hanson is remembered as being a pop artist. Pop and a
set of soup cans may have legitimized
realism, but in his outspoken rejection of
romanticism and efforts to eradicate artificial aesthetics, Hanson’s legacy is closer
to that of Gustave Courbet’s than it ever
was to Warhol’s.

Keep it real
28 works are displayed in Brussels, and
only Abortion (1965) falls into the earlier,
more aggressive category of his catalogue.
It walked the line between art and activism as unregulated backroom procedures
ended and abortion was eventually legal-

ised in the United States (1973). Here, it
is the sole work with direct reference to a
national issue. The rest are hyper-realistic
portraits of the people national issues
affect. They represent slices of suburban
life, and citizens who appear important,
because they are present and yet lack any
particular sign of importance. That is of
course, if you don’t find doctors, students,
couples, cleaners, or children important.
If Hanson’s results are more or less real
than the statues at Madame Tussauds,
I can’t say until I spend some time with
the works. What I can confirm is that I
know these people! Not like I know Prince
William, JCVD, or any other star set in
wax. I don’t know them as entertainment. I know their postures, their clothes,
and their unspoken language. I’ve been
to their homes, and don’t see this as a
show about the banality of “everyday”
people, but perhaps on the contrary, one
that states there is no such thing as an
everyday person; we are all absolutely
awesome.

Lost in translation
Hanson recognised his subjects’ lives as
works of art, and with fiberglass, clothes,
paint, and props made sure that other people saw them in the same way. He doesn’t
speculate on their worries or aspirations.
Judgment is futile and thus absent, at
least until reviews get written. In texts
related to this travelling retrospective, the
work is described as vilifying consumer
society and American mass culture via
illusionist works that reveal disturbing
truths and present characters who are
lonely, desperate, and far from success.
I have to wonder where this comes from.
How do we know that the Cowboy doesn’t
run a tech start-up, that the High School
Student wasn’t a valedictorian, or that the
Medical Doctor isn’t a leader in his field,
with two kids and a loving wife waiting
when he returns from the office? Hanson
isn’t telling us about their perils, he is just
putting these people back into our space
and the dignity this preserves, risks being
lost in art translation.
It’s condescending and one-sided to talk
of a devastated American Dream and sing
praise for the respect Hanson paid to socalled “invisible Americans”. He appeared
to be fighting, but not for a museum
that becomes a human zoo, where homage eventually becomes humiliation.
Invisible? Not a chance, and he apparently
wanted it to stay that way. These characters are as familiar to me as they were to
Hanson, who surely didn’t see his kids as
invisible. Two works that didn’t make it
to Belgium, Surfer (1987) and Cheerleader
(1988), were cast on their teenage bodies.
What father sees his children as tragically
failed? Do you think his eyes moistened
with pity and scorn for their suburban
plight or beamed with pride in the face of
their glorious potential?

The Minnesota-born, Florida-based
sculptor used a direct casting method
that has since been employed by artists
such as Jeff Koons, Charles Ray, Robert
Gober, or more recently Mark Jenkins,
and the exhibition details his process
through photo documentation and unfinished molds. It’s a big exhibition. I don’t
mean the number of works, the biceps of
Bodybuilder, or the obesity of Queenie and
the Man with Walkman, but in terms of
the questions it opens up about art, representation, and the expansive vernacular
landscape of the American Dream.

EN After the breakthrough album Strange Mercy and her applauded collaboration with David Byrne on Love This
Giant, the industrious Annie Clark aka St. Vincent is back again. On her fourth album, she makes her Technicolor
pop shine even brighter, makes the groove even groovier, and expresses her amazement at the digital age.
st. vincent • 17/2, 20.00, €22/25, ancienne belgique, boulevard Anspachlaan 110,
Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-548.24.24, www.abconcerts.be

EN ❙ Still obsessed with vintage keyboards and little synthetic touches, the three ladies of Au Revoir Simone have

given birth to Move in Spectrums, the fourth chapter of an adventurous, ethereal discography. Pop, modern and
delicate, this disc sees the New Yorkers thread their way between ethereal melodies and retro-futurist hymns.

he world premiere of Jérôme Bel took place in the late summer of 1995 at the Bellone Brigittines Festival in Brussels.
It was Bel’s second show – the first was drily labelled Nom
donné par l’auteur – and came about at the request of Patrick
Bonté, who is now director of Les Brigittines. “I had nothing
to lose; I was young, determined, and exceptionally arrogant,”
recalls Bel with a laugh. “The task I set myself back then as a choreographer was to answer the question, ‘What is a dance show?’
The answer was: bodies, music, and staging. So in that production I looked for the minimum: a space, men, women, light, and
sound. That choice was partly dictated by financial considerations, but there was first and foremost a clear concept underlying
it. What Roland Barthes called
“Le degré zéro de l’écriture”, the
minimalism of Carl Andre, and
John Cage’s 4’33” were hugely
important for me. They still are,
indeed. So I stripped away everything that was superfluous: I
wanted to go to the essence.”
In Jérôme Bel, the actors Eric
Lamoureux, Claire Haenni, Yseult
Roch, Gisèle Pelozuelo, and Frédéric Seguette are naked onstage.
The setting is exceptionally austere: black walls and floor, the
“bare” starting point of the stage. The actors write the names of
important twentieth-century figures – including Thomas Edison
and Igor Stravinsky – on the wall in chalk. The lighting comes
from a lamp that the actors pass to each other. Somebody whistles and hums The Rite of Spring; the actors measure parts of
their bodies and write the measurements on their skin with red
felt-tip pens. It is this simplicity that gives Jérôme Bel its radical
quality and poetic poignancy: it has at its heart the body, weakness, and vulnerability.
Although the choreographer regularly revives older works, Jérôme
Bel has been an exception: “The last revival was in 2008, in the
context of a retrospective in London. When the Kaaitheater
approached me, I wasn’t interested at all. But the actors [the
original cast! – IS] quite liked the idea. Over the last few weeks,
we have rehearsed the familiar material again. But we did so in
a critical spirit. Anything that felt obsolete was ruthlessly jettisoned. We asked ourselves what this show still means today and
whether we could appeal to younger generations with it.”
Bel continues to come up with influential shows, at his own, leisurely pace. The last time he was a guest in Brussels was in the
summer of 2012, when he presented the premiere of Disabled
Theater, a witty work featuring ten people with learning disabilities, at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. “Right now I am working on
Atelier danse et voix, a production with young people from the
suburbs of Paris. The context is purely French, but who knows,
maybe it will develop and we will be able to interest Belgian audiences too in the ultra-local.”

made his first solo, Mind a Gap, an energetic tribute to the beauty of a body in
motion. AGENDA is giving away 5 pairs of tickets for the performance on 20
February at the KVS. E-mail “gap” to win@bdw.be. Info: www.kvs.be

War, the Flemish Radio Choir’s commemoration of World War I with work by
British composers such as Herbert Howells, Peter Warlock, and William Walton,
who experienced the war close up or from slightly further away. AGENDA is
giving away 10 pairs of tickets. E-mail “great war” to win@bdw.be. Info:
www.flagey.be

EN ❙ Philippe Quesne has announced his new theatre production Swamp
Club as a fantastical musical city fable set in and around a swamp populated by
strange creatures... You can find out more about it next week, in our interview
with the French director, but this week we are giving away 5 pairs of tickets
for the performance on 21 February at the Kaaitheater. E-mail “swamp” to
win@bdw.be. Info: www.kaaitheater.be
NL ❙ Tijdens de Museum Night Fever van 22 februari kunnen nachtraven

ness for art can go to no fewer than 24 museums between 7 pm and 1 am for
tours, concerts, performances, and workshops. AGENDA is giving away 5 pairs
of passes that will get you in everywhere (except to the closing party by Bulex,
for which you need a separate ticket). E-mail “fever” to win@bdw.be. Info:
www.museumnightfever.be

have to be able to hear the future in it. That was the case with the electro
pop of Kraftwerk, the Detroit sound of Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson,
the unruly electronica of Autechre, and the glitchy dance music of
Vladislav Delay. En we get that same feeling now when listening to the
productions and mixes by people like Sinjin Hawke and Zora Jones. Both
live in Barcelona and are attracting a lot of attention in the contemporary
bass scene. Almost three years ago, Hawke released his breakthrough EP
The Lights on the Brussels-based Pelican Fly label, a global hype. Since
then, the collaborations have been piling up. American rap star Gangsta
Boo, the legendary hip-hop producer Just Blaze, and the popular Londonbased artist L-Vis 1990 have joined him at the mix panel. His work is
heavily influenced by hip hop and R&B. Beats and drops boom out of
your speakers like sledgehammer blows. Synths and sampled voices flash
through the air like laser beams. Last year, Zora Jones also found her
way to Pelican Fly through their house compilation Feathers, and they
occasionally tour together as a DJ couple. Expect scraps of footwork, postdubstep, and hyperactive drums in a sexy wrapping. On Saturday, the duo
is being joined by 22tracks R&B curator and (polaraid) blogger Ouni and
Folie Douce co-founder Dragon Eliott. (KVD)

and I Love Techno and the release of his album Aleph last
year, it seemed to be utterly indisputable: Gesaffelstein
is the underground DJ/musician in the electronic world
right now. Despite his jet-black music, the Frenchman
has some strange features, and that seems to appeal to
a lot of people.
He is called “The Prince of French Techno” and a certain
veil of mystery hangs over Mike Lévy – his name in everyday life. Those are certainly good ingredients to build up a
certain status. For ease’s sake, Gesaffelstein is categorised
under “techno”, but his productions are much more varied
than mere repetitive thumping.
We’ve seldom been overwhelmed by so much intensity, both on the album and live onstage. His beats cut
a path right through your bones, by turns at a drudgingly slow tempo and then as a flashing barrage. His
sound is inspired by industrial, new wave, cold wave, new
beat, rave, and electro. They are all dark and aggressive

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electronic genres, but his music is by no means blind
rage. Behind the façade, you discover the warmth of
Gesaffelstein’s synthesisers, which coat his songs in an
emotional glaze.
If he’d wanted to make things easier for himself, he could
have had a hit long ago. A refined electro beat highlighted
with a rapping Kanye West, for example, for whose last
album Yeezus he did some productions. Throw in a monster of a climax and he would be done. But that doesn’t
appear to be necessary, because he already gets invited to
all the big festivals and sells out all the big clubs.
Gesaffelstein probably learned that lesson from his masters Brodinski and The Hacker. The latter is best known for
his collaboration with DJ diva Miss Kittin at the height of
the electro-clash rage. And he will be eternally grateful to
Tiga for the leg-up he was given on the Canadian’s label,
Turbo Recordings. And now Gesaffelstein is graduating up
the highest level of the underground scene. We happily
succumb. (KVD)

EN ❙ Spain’s Golden Age. The age inaugurated by the Catholic Monarchs,
Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and influenced by the mystical
writings of Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross. An age of prosperity, when the New World was opening up. It was in this unusual and fertile
context that the painter Francisco de Zurbarán emerged; born in Extremadura
in 1598, he was trained in Seville and spent much of his life there. Whereas
his contemporary and friend Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal
family and of members of the nobility for the court, Zurbarán devoted himself
almost entirely to the domain of the sacred, carrying out commissions from
religious orders to adorn convents and churches. Christ on the cross, portraits
of saints and depictions of scenes from their lives, the Agnus Dei, the Virgin
Mary, miracles, and apparitions succeed one another in chronological order in
this prestigious exhibition, in which walls and picture rails painted dark grey
and low-intensity lighting underscore the baroque painter’s skilful orchestration of chiaroscuro (the treatment of light and shade). As with Caravaggio,
whose equal he is when it comes to depicting drapes, flesh, and textures
(don’t miss his subtle still life with pottery), Zurbarán’s figures often stand
out against a dark, almost monochrome, background. Unlike the hot-headed
Italian master, however, with Zurbarán a certain calm prevails. The features of
a face are almost always peaceful – as in the extraordinarily modern portrait
(from around 1635) of Saint Francis of Assisi, a star among founders of orders.
The saint is depicted in a habit, with its raised hood plunging his face into
shadow. One of his bare feet is ahead of the other. He contemplates a skull,
which he holds in his hands and which, capturing our attention at the centre
of the painting, is like a mirror facing his lowered face, recalling our mortal
condition and, beyond that, the hope of resurrection. The painting is one of
the highlights of this very impressive exhibition, which is supplemented by a
series of musical events (see p. 46). Estelle Spoto

EN ❙ With its simple, odd name (“lad and lass”, roughly), this “Peï & Meï” is
not what one might think. We expected an establishment devoted to Brussels
cuisine…but we were in for a surprise! This particular “peï” and “meï” are not
just anybody. The guy is one Gauthier De Baere, a chef who has worked under
Alain Troubat of the Stirwen – associated with the very best of old-school cuisine – and Le Fourneau. The “girl” is Mélissa Triantopoulos, daughter of Evan
of the Gril aux Herbes in Wemmel, a connoisseur of Mediterranean cuisine and
peerless wine expert. They have divided responsibilities between them, with
one in the dining room and the other in the kitchen. Both carry out their tasks
with a professionalism one has not seen for a long time in a restaurant of this
kind. So what kind is that? Well, you could describe it as a néo-bistrot devoted
to a distinctive individual cuisine. A long narrow room with a Scandinavian
flavour opens onto an open kitchen. Contrary to what one might imagine, the
Nordic influence visible in the decor isn’t carried over into the cuisine. Rather
than the stripped-down, De Baere’s tastes run more towards the self-indulgent
and juicy. As you will find out if you go for the starter-plus-main-course option
at €34, a two-part revelation that began with an entry we had never seen
elsewhere, consisting of a slice of warm feta with truffle-flavoured honey, thinly
sliced witloof/chicons, and vinaigrette. Hats off, it had everything: texture, the
interplay of the acidic and the bitter, and even creaminess. The main course
was even tastier: a slice of turbot, baked, with olive oil. It was cooked in a way
that showed respect for the fish’s flesh, perfectly in other words, as was the
well-cooked (tombée) mix of vegetables, including fennel, young spinach,
little cherry tomatoes, dill, carrots, and leeks. The desserts – in this case, a
magnificent chocolate composition – are of the same high standard. As was the
carefully chosen wine, an outstanding Pinot Noir by Rieffel (€46).

EN ❙ Drinking cocktails in the former embassy of Vatican City, very rock ‘n’
roll! Descend the stairs into the dark cellar of Hortense and discover one of
Brussels’s most intriguing drinks menus. Just to be clear, the cellars of the
nunciature at the Church on the Grote Zavel/Grand Sablon are no longer in
use. They used to house a wine merchant’s and the cocktail bar Hortense
moved in just over a year ago. Matthieu and Romina wanted to start a business
offering lesser-known spirits made by smaller distilleries. They dubbed their
bar Hortense, after a poem by their favourite poet Arthur Rimbaud, dedicated
to a certain H. The menu changes every two weeks, though some cocktails have
proved so popular that they have become permanent fixtures: Raging Ginger
(with tequila, herbal liqueur, and ginger beer) and The Other Woman (with vermouth, bitters, and champers). Interesting combinations in beautiful glasses,
without garish colours, saccharine edges, or little umbrellas.
It is pitch-black inside, with just enough candlelight to find a little table and
read the menu. Besides the cocktail suggestions, you can also find all the
classics, or if you prefer to take your spirits neat, that’s OK too. Every drink is
served with water and popcorn to ensure that you can enjoy the evening for as
long as possible. The point is not that you leave the place completely plastered
(at 12 euro a glass that might be an expensive venture), but that you enjoy the
environment, your company, and the drinks. You can sate mild appetites with
some oysters or Italian ham off the bone; the suggestions change regularly.
Hortense has about twenty seats in the main bar, and another twenty in the
second room. Booking in advance is recommended. So is ordering a Raging
Ginger, as far as we’re concerned. It is a variant of the Dark & Stormy, but with
an extra kick. Perfect for the cold winter.

EN ❙ French singer Emily
Allison and her countryman Thomas Mayade met
in 2009 and immediately
decided to form a duo to
try out every imaginable
possibility vocals and
bugle offer. Their main inspirations were Kenny
Wheeler & Norma Winstone, but also Diederik
Wissels & David Linx. Because she wanted to learn
from the latter, Allison came to Brussels, followed by
Mayade. Linx’s lessons clearly bore fruit. Her singing
is irrefutably immersed in his style. No crooner clichés or artificial scatting, but a very particular vocal
cachet between parlando and extremely versatile
voice flexion, to which Mayade’s bugle adds warm
accents. It is pianist Dorian Dumont, however, who
pulls the whole thing in the direction of pure jazz.
The two duets with Linx are textbook examples of
how close a student can stick to her teacher. It’s no
coincidence that the group won the Brussels Jazz
Marathon competition in 2011. More proof that
our capital is an international hub for young jazz
talent. (GTB)
15/2, 22.00, €10, sounds

EN ❙ What kind of music
might Spanish painter
Francisco de Zurbarán have
heard during his life in
Madrid and Seville? That
question is the exhilarating
inspiration of the new CD by Paul Van Nevel and his
Huelgas Ensemble. It’s also a clever move by Bozar,
as they are using the recording as a soundtrack to
(and in) the exhibition “Zurbarán. Master of Spain’s
Golden Age” (see our expo review on p. 40). This
CD with both religious and secular vocal music
illustrates the extent to which the religious ideal of
St. Teresa of Ávila, the patroness of Spain, filtered
into Spanish music, albeit gradually. In other words,
polyphonic music intended to act as a lever to lift
the listener into rapture and ecstasy. And that is precisely the repertoire in which the Huelgas Ensemble
specialises. The result – to put it mildly – is a
crystal-clear, but also imploring and kaleidoscopic
recording. (RD)
26/5, 20.00, €24/34, Kapellekerk/Église de
la chapelle, www.bozar.be

twee namen bij op de lijst met talent om in het oog te houden: actrice Brie Larson en scenarist-regisseur Destin
Cretton. In Bozar stelt Cretton maandag zijn emotionele, vitale film over een pleeghuis voor.
EN ❙ American independent cinema is in great shape. Short Term 12 leaves us in no doubt, two names have to
be added to the list of talent to watch: actress Brie Larson and scriptwriter-director Destin Cretton. On Monday,
Cretton is presenting his emotional, vital film about a foster-care facility at Bozar.
short term 12 • Release: 19/2
Avant-première in the presence of Destin Cretton: 17/2, 20.00, €8/10, Bozar, rue Ravensteinstraat
23, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-507.82.00, www.bozar.be

AGENDAmagazine.be

51

Hustler of the week

american hustle

●●●●

kinepolis, ugc de brouckère, ugc gulden vlies/toison d’or ¦ US, 2013, dir.: David
O. Russell, act.: Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, 140 min.
EN ❙ The first scene
hasn’t even started
yet, and this film has
already given us a nice
surprise.
American
Hustle doesn’t boast
with the hackneyed
“based on a true
story”, but whets your
appetite with “some
of this actually happened.” Of course that is hardly
believable. Right from the start, the
first sequence masterfully balances on the tightrope director David
O. Russell has drawn between drama
and comedy. So do all the following
sequences. Christian Bale, Batman
with a gut as big as Jabba the Hutt’s,
glues tufts of hair onto his bald head.
It looks awful, contrary to his intentions. The other characters are no
less colourful and are also played
by people with both star power and
acting talent – not a common combination nowadays. They also perform
without restraint, throwing caution
to the wind as they flirt with the caricatural, though without ever making
the film look ridiculous. Amy Adams
is a defrauding diva who in amorous
affairs has to share her partner (Bale)
with his vulgar wife, a role played

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by Jennifer Lawrence.
An ambitious FBI
agent (Bradley Cooper)
pressures the pair of
swindlers to cooperate in a grotesque
undercover
operation. A fake sheikh is
enlisted to uncover the
corruption of senators and a mayor from
New Jersey (Jeremy Renner). Google
Abscam if you want to know the real
history. But seeing it at the cinema
is much more fun. O. Russell has
modernised the screwball comedy
and added a Scorsese-style Goodfellas
voice-over, attention to production
design, and the habit of using a terrific soundtrack. But more than anything, he gives his actors the space
to win the favour of audiences with
their crazy 1970s outfits and hairdos, and their great dialogues. There
is no amazing climax, but on the
other hand, the script does more than
merely detail one swindle. In his or
her own way, everyone is using every
possible opportunity to hustle each
other. O. Russell’s title doesn’t specify that only the hustle is American.
Great entertainment is very American
too. Niels Ruëll

Christian Bale, from XS to XL

Christian Bale has made extreme body transformations his trademark. Here are some of the most
remarkable.

Extra small
Christian Bale was only 13
when Steven Spielberg cast
him in Empire of the Sun as a
spoiled British boy who ends up
in a prison camp when Japan invades China at the beginning
of the Second World War.

Extra skinny
For the lead part in The
Machinist, a worker who has no
time to sleep and may be hallucinating everything, Bale lost
28 kilos. After a life-threatening coffee-apple-cigarette diet, he
was nothing but skin and bone. Along with the kilos, Bale also
lost his sexual appetite.

Extra buff
Immediately after The
Machinist, Bale hit the gym to
develop enough muscle to play a
convincing superhero in the first
of three Batman movies. In only six months’ time, he almost
doubled his weight – mostly muscle.

Extra fat
For American Hustle, the actor
gained weight until he reached
104 kilos. The fat gut is the
result of dozens of doughnuts
and cheeseburgers. We’ll soon be seeing him again as Moses in
Ridley Scott’s Exodus. He was neither anorexic nor obese. Bale’s
liver and stomach are murmuring a quite prayer of thanksgiving.

EN ❙ Some stories can’t handle colour. But not everyone can just make a film in black and white (and
4:3 screen ratio). Pawel Pawlikowski, the Polish Brit
we embraced after My Summer of Love, but whose
career subsequently faded somewhat, demonstrates
that filming in black and white can be as expressive
as a charcoal drawing and that refined framing and
camera angles not only produce compelling images,
but also help to create the right atmosphere and
distance to depict a difficult history. In Poland in the
early 1960s, a mother superior forbids the orphaned
girl Ida from professing her final vows before she has
visited her only relative, an aunt. The latter’s name
is Wanda, and she is certainly no nun. She flirts,
dances, and drinks away her embitterment at having
to adjudicate in a small claims court when she used to
be Wanda the Red, the prosecutor who sent enemies
of the state to the gallows. Faith, worldview, age…
Wanda and Ida are opposites in almost every respect,
but they have a date with history. Ida is Jewish and it’s
time to find out what happened to her parents during
the Second World War. It is a horrific and painful story.
Nevertheless, Pawlikowski doesn’t focus on only one
theme or emotion. The film is about the present, and
the role of history therein. Do you dare to embrace
life? Are you still able to? A film to remember.

EN ❙ Beautiful but beastly. We
hesitate to write our conclusion
down. Not because we’re ashamed
of it; a feeble allusion for a flat film,
fair enough, right? The question
is whether La Belle et la Bête is
actually a beautiful film. A whopping 33 million euro was budgeted
to adapt this fairy tale that also
inspired Jean Cocteau, Disney, and others. And you can tell. From the special effects,
the sets, the dresses, and the castle with its magical garden. They are all expensive,
but not necessarily beautiful. And that’s a big problem, because the production
design is this would-be French blockbuster’s only asset. The film features big names
like Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel, but their talents are not exploited to the full.
They are given no opportunity to make their iconic characters three-dimensional.
Appearances are all that count. One supporting character does serious, another does
camp, Belle’s sisters do vapid, and André Dussollier does soporific. But the weak performances are nothing compared to the abysmal screenplay. The overarching story
treats viewers like naïve children. Don’t bother looking for a leitmotif because there
isn’t one, and even less vision. We understand that director Christophe Gans misses
the success of Le pacte des loups, thirteen years ago, and that he’s more of a doer
than a thinker. But surely you don’t start making a fairy tale without the faintest idea
of what it might mean? We didn’t hesitate about beastly for a moment.

EN ❙ The Golden Bear winner Child’s Pose was
released last week. The film that won the Silver Bear
in Berlin and got Nazif Mujic a Best Actor Award is
opening this week. Mujic’s award is quite spectacular
because he’s not actually an actor. He plays himself,
just like his wife Senada Alimanovic and their children. They do so on the request of Danis Tanovic.
The Bosnian who went to film school in Brussels and
made his name with No Man’s Land, was so outraged
by what had happened to this family that he saw it as
a socio-realist drama that transcended their personal
suffering. Nazif lives in an underprivileged, abject
area of Bosnia-Herzegovina and supports his family
by selling scrap metal. His wife has a life-threatening
miscarriage. The first hospital they try refuses to help.
So does the second. They have no health insurance
and no money. They also have the misfortune of being
Roma. Nazif remains remarkably calm as he searches
for a solution. The arc of tension is not quite as it
should be, and that is in part because Senada is playing herself, so you know she’s going to make it. The
contrast between the heartless doctors and the dirtpoor but warm family is painful. Hopefully this film
will open the eyes of the many people who are (again)
accusing the Roma of all kinds of wrongdoing. There
is venom in the title. This is only one small episode.

acteurs sont médiocres.
EN | There was a 33 million euro budget to turn the fairy tale
beloved of Jean Cocteau and Disney into a French blockbuster. You can tell there was plenty of money, but the script,
acting, and directing are sub-par.

de Cendrillon. Riad Sattouf (Les beaux gosses) tire la satire jusqu’au ridicule.
EN | In a women’s republic where men
are forced to wear burkas, Jacky has an
adventure like Cinderella’s. Riad Sattouf (Les
beaux gosses) pushes the satire to the limits
of the ridiculous.

mis sur pied pour un parc d’attractions.
EN | The Brussels-based nWave pioneered
computer animated films in 3D. And is still
doing so. After Fly me to the Moon (about
flies travelling to the moon) and two films
about Sammy the sea turtle, they have now
made a film about a kitten that finds itself in
the mysterious mansion of a retired wizard.
Director Ben Stassen was inspired by one of
the 4D attraction films he used to make for
amusement parks.

chute d’un trader hédoniste devenu, de
manière douteuse, scandaleusement riche.
Du costaud, mais pas meilleur que ses films
précédents.
EN | Scorsese pulls out all the stops in this
black comedy about the rise and fall of a
hedonistic stock trader who became scandalously rich through questionable business
practices. Bigger and louder, but not necessarily better than earlier work.